I'm sure that there will be a lot of rumors floating around, especially from the anti-TD camp. "Oh....TD couple have gotten this for Gonzo, boo-hoo TD could have gotten this for White"...and so on. The fact of the matter is that there was only ONE trade yesterday. Trades are a lot easier said than done in the NFL.

I'm sure that there will be a lot of rumors floating around, especially from the anti-TD camp. "Oh....TD couple have gotten this for Gonzo, boo-hoo TD could have gotten this for White"...and so on. The fact of the matter is that there was only ONE trade yesterday. Trades are a lot easier said than done in the NFL.

true enough. That why I remain skeptical that it is even true.

but just for sh*ts, and giggles, if we really could get a 4th or 5th for Tony, so he could retire as a Chief and have a crack at the postseason, I dont see why that's such a bad idea. I guess the argument could be made that with TD's record of 5th round picks then yeah, I get it. I would have done it just out of a sense of honor, but Im a fan-boy.

What's worse.....keeping Gonzo or trading him and giving the fans the belief that they are giving up on the season? The anti-TD camp wins either way.

that is a valid point. I would wager if you polled most of the Falcons fan base, they would be okay with it. Roddy White, not so much. It's not like they were trading him to The Jaguars, I think most people ( even his teammates ) wouldn't have a big problem with it. BUt I can see that it would be sending a message, unless somehow it could be explained that we needed the 5th round pick next year...

Posted by Mike Florio on October 30, 2013, 10:40 AM EDTDimitroffAPFuture Hall of Fame tight end Tony Gonzalez made clear on Monday his desire to be traded to a contender, saying everything but, “Trade me to a contender.”

Falcons G.M. Thomas Dimitroff has explained why none of his players were traded.

“We are confident in our roster and our football team,” Dimitroff told D. Orlando Ledbetter of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “We are all aware that we have not gotten the results that we want so far, but I believe in our coaches and players.”

Conversely, trading Gonzalez easily could have been viewed by the players left behind as a sign that Dimitroff doesn’t believe in their ability to reverse a 2-5 start and battle for a playoff berth.

“We owe it to our owner, our fans, our coaches and our players to win as many games as possible, and we believe that we have the pieces to be a good football team,” Dimitroff said. “We know we have dug ourselves a hole, but together we can dig ourselves out and that is what we are focused on.”

Dimitroff also explained that, generally speaking, he doesn’t like to make in-season trades that involve players coming to the Falcons.

“As an organization we have three reasons why we do not believe in in-season trades,” Dimitroff said. “There is often times a reason why some players are available via trade in-season, and that does not always fit with our team-building philosophy.

“The second reason has to do with scheme-fit and the ability to pick up the system in time to contribute during that season. Often times, it can take a player a couple of weeks to get comfortable with the system and sometimes even longer. You would have to be completely confident that the player would be able to step in and play right away. Most of the time, that is not the case.

“The final piece in trades involves compensation, and that is something that we are always very mindful of.”

While Dimitroff didn’t completely rule out the possibility of making future in-season trades, his reasoning for not, for example, trading for a receiver to replace Julio Jones makes plenty of sense. Still, Gonzalez wanted out — and the Falcons held firm.

Apart from demonstrating faith in the players, the Falcons showed the locker room that a separate set of rules doesn’t apply to Gonzalez, who finagled the ability to skip out for a large chunk of training camp when his 95-percent certainty to retire dropped to zero.

(Note to other established veterans: If you act like the year before your final year will be your final year, you may score some key concessions for your final year.)

But Gonzalez forgot to ask for the one thing no one ever thought he’d need — a promise from Dimitroff that, if the Falcons are fading from contention in late October, they’ll trade Gonzalez to a contending team.

I would have taken the 5th if it had been made available. Obviously, a 5th rounder wouldn't replace Tony, but odds are pretty darn good that Tony won't be here next year. We have a talent depleted roster, a 5th rounder would have helped with our depth, or could have been used to move up in the draft. (package a couple of 5th rounders and a 4th rounder to get another 3rd rounder.)

I wouldn't have made that trade, not for a 5th, unless Tony explicitly told me he wanted out. Tony was beating around the bush.

But the simple fact if the Falcons had traded Gonzo, their offense would be absolutely abysmal for the remainder of the season, even if they saw a triumphant return of Roddy soon.

That draft pick has to make it worth while for you to basically be tanking your season, and I'm sorry but a 5th round pick is not worthwhile. A 5th round pick has about a 10-15% chance of turning into a good NFL player. The trade-off for a 3-13 season is not worth that. With Gonzo on the roster, we still have a shot at 5-11 or 6-10.

Think about it this way, would a 5th round pick be enough compensation to move up from say picking 8th overall (with a 6-10 record) to 3rd (with a 3-13 record)?

Now, you can say 'the competitor in Tony will not allow him to 'sell out', but for a guy who sat out camp, had to be 'talked into' returning ( allegedly by his son ) and in the past has proven not to commit to full on blocking, I can't see him laying his a$$ out on the line in December. But that wont matter much longer because eventually Ryan will get dinged up and then some people will say 'well, injuries are random and everything looks better in hindsight'...

Someone on the Roost mentioned that only 5th round pick in TD's era not still in the NFL is Meier. I have no problem with the non-trade. There is a lot of football left to be played and to strip the team like the guy in Miami is always doing with the Marlins just seems sort of fraudulent to folks who bought STs this year. TG may be one of the few things they will pay to come see if things really go south. I think when Roddy get back we will be much more competitive though nothing remarkable. We've already beaten the dead horse with Tony's brief training camp. Enough favors. I can see the other side though and I do hope we begin stock piling picks instead of trading them away.

A 5th is plenty for Tony. The season is over, the worse we do the better we will be in the future. With Tony we now may screw up and win some games I'm hoping for 2-14 and a top 5 pick, not 6-10 and a 12-14 in each round. Also with our pension for trading up a 5th is valuable as we can package it with another pick or two to move up in one of rounds 1-3. Not trading him was stupid, plain and simple.

_________________When life gives you lemons, find some salt and tequila then invite me!

A 5th is plenty for Tony. The season is over, the worse we do the better we will be in the future. With Tony we now may screw up and win some games I'm hoping for 2-14 and a top 5 pick, not 6-10 and a 12-14 in each round. Also with our pension for trading up a 5th is valuable as we can package it with another pick or two to move up in one of rounds 1-3. Not trading him was stupid, plain and simple.

A. In most draft years, a team that goes 5-11 or 6-10 still typically picks in the Top 10, just the lower end of it. As you can tell from looking at the records of teams that picked in the past 3 drafts:

B. You're operating under a false assumption that picking in the Top 5 is inherently more valuable than picking between 5-10 or 10-15. That is entirely dependent on the specific draft class. Take for instance, 2009. Every single one of the Top 5 picks except Stafford is widely labeled busts, while there was only 1 bust taken between picks 6-10 (Darrius Heyward Bey). In fact, the best players taken in Round 1 of that draft were picks 13, 15, 21, 22, and 26, as well as picks 19, 23, and 29 also having just as much success in the NFL as any of the good picks in the Top 10.

Contrast that to 2011, where with the exception of the 3 QBs (Locker, Gabbert, Ponder), every single one of the Top 17 picks would (at this point in time) be considered a success.

Good teams draft well regardless of where they are picking. This may wind up being a draft where there are 3 or 4 outstanding prospects and thus picking after 4 might be undesirable. Or it could be a class where there are a dozen really solid prospects and picking at the top isn't really as valuable as normally perceived.

While there is a small increase in the chance you find a successful player at the upper end of the draft, the difference between a Top 5 pick and a Top 10 pick is probably not as big as many people perceive it to be.

Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised. He's the only player that I've ever seen that gets MUGGED at the goal line on EVERY PLAY. It's pretty insane. I can understand not wanting to do what Favre did, but Tony is still one of the best at his position in the NFL. Not THE best, mind you. But top 10.

A 5th is plenty for Tony. The season is over, the worse we do the better we will be in the future. With Tony we now may screw up and win some games I'm hoping for 2-14 and a top 5 pick, not 6-10 and a 12-14 in each round. Also with our pension for trading up a 5th is valuable as we can package it with another pick or two to move up in one of rounds 1-3. Not trading him was stupid, plain and simple.

A. In most draft years, a team that goes 5-11 or 6-10 still typically picks in the Top 10, just the lower end of it. As you can tell from looking at the records of teams that picked in the past 3 drafts:

B. You're operating under a false assumption that picking in the Top 5 is inherently more valuable than picking between 5-10 or 10-15. That is entirely dependent on the specific draft class. Take for instance, 2009. Every single one of the Top 5 picks except Stafford is widely labeled busts, while there was only 1 bust taken between picks 6-10 (Darrius Heyward Bey). In fact, the best players taken in Round 1 of that draft were picks 13, 15, 21, 22, and 26, as well as picks 19, 23, and 29 also having just as much success in the NFL as any of the good picks in the Top 10.

Contrast that to 2011, where with the exception of the 3 QBs (Locker, Gabbert, Ponder), every single one of the Top 17 picks would (at this point in time) be considered a success.

Good teams draft well regardless of where they are picking. This may wind up being a draft where there are 3 or 4 outstanding prospects and thus picking after 4 might be undesirable. Or it could be a class where there are a dozen really solid prospects and picking at the top isn't really as valuable as normally perceived.

While there is a small increase in the chance you find a successful player at the upper end of the draft, the difference between a Top 5 pick and a Top 10 pick is probably not as big as many people perceive it to be.

Pudge, you picked one year that made your argument, but their are many others that show just the opposite. Also you have to have faith that if TD gets in the top 5 he won't blow it as he's not a bad GM. Also having a worse record moves us up in every round, not just the first. We need picks as we have alot of holes and by keeping Tony we have only made our future worse.

_________________When life gives you lemons, find some salt and tequila then invite me!

I only illustrated 1 year for the sake of brevity (see, I'm trying). I think you go and do the research yourself, you'd realize that picking high varies from class to class. Frankly, if you look over the past decade, you might discover that picking 11th is the best position to be in Round 1 since there have been 5 likely/potential HOFers taken at that spot in the past 12 drafts, with only 2 real busts (Leodis McKelvin, who is currently a starting CB in the NFL so not huge bust and Aaron Maybin). The 5 I'm referring to are Freeney (2002), Roethlisberger (2004), DeMarcus Ware (2005), Willis (2007), and J.J. Watt (2011).

As for confidence in TD, I do have the utmost confidence in him taking in the Top 5. Besides reaching a round on Jerry, I really have no complaints about any of TD's first round picks. Sam Baker included. As I explained to Emmitt in the latest podcast episode, the problem wasn't the selection of Baker. That made perfect sense at the time. The mistake was giving him that extension.

I've never thought TD was a bad GM, nor do I really think he's done a bad job. By and large he's an above average GM, and again I think his record overall is a strong indicator that he's one of the 10 best GMs in the league. The issue I have is that I think that the overall picture is greatly influenced by his early success, which has overshadowed some of his recent failures. As well as the fact that certain areas of this roster have failed to improve significantly over the course of his tenure because of a questionable draft strategy which IMO has overly focused on need as opposed to upside. IMO, early on he was 100% right to focus on need because that is what is needed to get a team out of the cellar, but as time has gone on I think he needs to shift more to a best player available strategy to get top-end players that will take this team from a mid-level talented team (which I believe the Falcons are) to one that is at the upper end of the scale because instead of being a team with 6 or 7 really good players, you now are a team with 10 or 12 really good players. And in conjunction to the Julio Jones trade which took away draft picks, you have to hit more "doubles" and "triples" with the picks you retained rather than the "singles" he was aiming for.

To use another baseball analogy, TD is a good lead-off hitter because he'll consistently get on base. But now we're deeper in the lineup, and we need some power.

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